Governor refutes media reports on Mayor

Kolkata, Aug 8 (UNI) West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi today refuted news reports attributed to him in connection with the city mayor on climate change and its effect on the city by 2030.

A Raj Bhavan communique said the governor was distressed by a section of media reports of his WBUT (West Bengal University of Technology) convocation speech yesterday.

While referring to the challenges posed by climate change to cities by 2030, the Governor had said that cyclone and high intensity rain in narrowed time-frames were expected to pose challenges by 2030 to civic authorities in terms of inundation management.

''Referring to Kolkata, which faces rain associated problems regularly, the intensified situation will require the Mayor at that time to be stronger than even the very strong Mayor of KMC we have now,'' the Governor was quoted as saying.

To present this as a negative comment on the incumbent Mayor was grossly unfair to him and to the Governor, the statement said.

The Governor, who is at Santiniketan, has also spoken to Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharjee on the phone about this, the communique added.

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